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Cognitive Behaviour Therapy with Adolescents

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A Practical Approach to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is undoubtedly one of the most challenging periods in one’s life. The adolescent faces many challenges. Negotiating these academic, interpersonal and intrapersonal challenges is crucial for the overall adjustment of the adolescent. Emotional and psychological problems such as anxiety, depression and stress reactions are common in this period, often peaking in response to many demands. Therefore, helping adolescents deal effectively with these tasks is an important goal of psychological interventions. Psychological interventions in this population are often focused on skill building. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based psychological therapy that focuses on modifying dysfunctional beliefs that are said to maintain maladaptive emotions and behaviours. It is one of the most widely used psychological therapies with psychological problems. This chapter outlines some of the major principles behind the practice of CBT for adolescents with psychological problems. It also provides a bird’s-eye view of case conceptualization from the cognitive behavioural perspective and highlights some important techniques practised under CBT. An attempt has been made to present some of the important formats of CBT for adolescents that have been developed in the recent years.

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Correspondence to Paulomi Matam Sudhir .

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Sudhir, P.M. (2015). Cognitive Behaviour Therapy with Adolescents. In: Mehta, M., Sagar, R. (eds) A Practical Approach to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2241-5_2

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